In Mel Brook's grand parody on everything learned in history class, A History of the World Part I, he satirizes many stories about history as well, including Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. In his portrayal of the French Revolution, Brooks shows scenes of people selling apple cores, rat tales, and, literally "nothing". Madame Defarge sits to the side, knitting. Her knitting, however, is empty knitting; she has no cloth to knit with. Brooks's parody of the Madame Defarge character continues, as she inspires anger to a mob of peasants by pointing out their silly accents, "we do not even have a language!" (Brooks). Furthermore, when she instructs them to repeat after her and then coughs, the mob mindlessly imitates her cough. Brooks's parody on how easily the mob is manipulated by Madame Defarge causes viewers to question the feasibility of Dickens's story. A History of the World Part I picks on what many consider to be a weak point of A Tale of Two Cities: too exaggerated to be possible. Ironically, Brooks uses exaggeration and satire, a Dickens-style technique, to criticize Dickens himself. This criticism is not subtle; his Madame Defarge parody character is still called Madame Defarge, and she even has a wine shop. Unlike typical allusions to A Tale of Two Cities, which use and build on Dickens's strongly established themes and characterizations, Brooks uses Madame Defarge to destroy and parody what many consider to be a masterful characterization and story altogether.
In Mel Brook's grand parody on everything learned in history class, A History of the World Part I, he satirizes many stories about history as well, including Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. In his portrayal of the French Revolution, Brooks shows scenes of people selling apple cores, rat tales, and, literally "nothing". Madame Defarge sits to the side, knitting. Her knitting, however, is empty knitting; she has no cloth to knit with. Brooks's parody of the Madame Defarge character continues, as she inspires anger to a mob of peasants by pointing out their silly accents, "we do not even have a language!" (Brooks). Furthermore, when she instructs them to repeat after her and then coughs, the mob mindlessly imitates her cough. Brooks's parody on how easily the mob is manipulated by Madame Defarge causes viewers to question the feasibility of Dickens's story. A History of the World Part I picks on what many consider to be a weak point of A Tale of Two Cities: too exaggerated to be possible. Ironically, Brooks uses exaggeration and satire, a Dickens-style technique, to criticize Dickens himself. This criticism is not subtle; his Madame Defarge parody character is still called Madame Defarge, and she even has a wine shop. Unlike typical allusions to A Tale of Two Cities, which use and build on Dickens's strongly established themes and characterizations, Brooks uses Madame Defarge to destroy and parody what many consider to be a masterful characterization and story altogether.